The University of Essex has launched a new innovation award to celebrate inspirational businesses in the region.

Five inspirational businesses have been shortlisted for the new Innovation of the Year Award, with the winner set to be announced at a special Celebration of Innovation on September 29.

The event - at the University’s Colchester Campus - is also set to feature six annual awards recognising business partnerships which connect with the university’s academic research to achieve transformational innovation.

The five shortlisted companies from Essex, Suffolk and London are N2S in Bury St Edmunds, IRS in Colchester and three London companies - Urban Electric Network, Healum and Motilent.

N2S has developed the world’s first sustainable "bioleaching" solution which harnesses the power of bacteria to extract metals from printed circuit boards. These can then be re-used in digital hardware, providing a sustainable, zero pollution extraction method, which reduces pressure on mining for metals.

IRS is based in the university’s Innovation Centre, on the Knowledge Gateway, where it has developed the world’s first robotic food gripper. This uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) vision recognition software to pick and place a prepared food item, allowing sandwiches and frozen, chilled or heated meals to be assembled autonomously. It follows a staffing crisis in the prepared food industry, which spends $200bn US dollars on manual labour every year.

Urban Electric Network has developed the UEone retractable kerbside charging hub to solve the problem of overnight charging of electric vehicles for the 25% of drivers without off-street parking at home.

Healum has developed a cloud-based software system which connects healthcare professionals to patients via an app, while Motilent has developed the first tool to objectively assess the way the gut works based on MRI imaging. It is already being used in hospitals in Europe and the US.

The award winner will be announced at the ceremony, which will feature a keynote speech on the future of AI innovation by Unilever’s global head of digital and partnerships, Alberto Prado.

It will be hosted by the university’s pro-vice-chancellor for research Professor Chris Greer.

The event will also host the Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) Awards.